Day 75 - Play a Slide Whistle

Date: March 22nd, 2010

This entry is not about a slide whistle.  This entry is about my gramma.  That being said, my gramma took great pride in this project.  She was excited to teach me quilting and wool-working and hoped that there would be time for more projects.  There was not.  My gramma, Melba Turpen, died at 6:32am on Monday morning with both of my parents by her side.  One of her finals wishes (and true proof of how selfless she was) was that her death not cause my parents or I to fail at our pursuits.  She said to my mom, numerous times, that it was important to her not to disrupt my mom's graduation from law school.  She was less concerned about mine (not being until December and all), but she was proud that I continued with my projects and brought them home to show her as long as possible.  She got a good look at our greener world sculpture last weekend and saw the Mentos and Diet Coke trick video.

While it goes without saying that yesterday was hard, I knew she wouldn't want me to fail at this project (or any other) on her account.  So I grabbed the slide whistle I got for Christmas (and never took out of the box) from my closet and gave it a few puffs.  I hope no one will fault me for not writing extensively about the experience of passing air through a tube to make a sound.  The rest of this entry is about my gramma.  I'd like to share some things about her with you all, if you're willing to read on.  Thank you.

My gramma grew up in Illinois.  Her father was a baker and a wonderful man who worked hard to provide for her and her siblings.  When she was younger she was an amazing roller skater.  She was offered a trip to New York to compete in roller-skating's version of figure skating, but chose not to go alone with her male partner, times being different then and all.  Her best friend was a woman named Beverly.  They grew up together, married around the same time and had kids at almost exactly the same time.

When she was younger, she struggled with alcohol.  That was something that defined both the early and later stages of her life.  It was important to her, once she got sober, to help others that struggled with drugs or alcohol.  She wasn't judgmental about alcohol use and though she told me a few months ago that she still struggled with the temptation to drink, she didn't give in to that temptation the whole time I was alive.  When I was in college (undergrad), I wasn't as responsible as I am now.  I wasn't a huge partier, but I did overindulge a few times.  One of those times was when I was living with her.  I came home with the kind of hangover they write stories about.  I called my mom, concerned that I had a real problem and then sat on the floor of my gramma's office and leaned my head against the wall.  She nursed me back to health and we had a good laugh - she still knew all the tricks for curing a hangover fast.

She showed exactly the same compassion to people she'd never met before that she showed to me that morning.  She came to my church and met my pastor one evening.  During her visit, a young man who looked homeless and strung out showed up at the door looking for... something.  I wasn't sure and I was nervous.  My gramma talked to him and ended up giving him a ride back to the place he was staying - something she didn't have to do.  She was careful, of course, but she still helped him, despite the danger.  While she didn't talk about faith a lot, when she was helping someone with a drug or alcohol problem she never feared what could happen to her.  Those were the times when she felt like she was serving God and because of that, she felt protected. 

Her first marriage, to my biological grandfather, was not a good one.  She later remarried a man named Bill who was everything a person could ask for in a grampa.  He was kind, funny and loving.  I was too young to see the world through the same eyes as my parents, but for them, they loved Bill because of how much he loved my gramma.  They met at Alcoholics Anonymous and were both in recovery when they began their relationship.  My gramma was there with Bill when he died almost twenty years ago.  She made the decision not to seek another relationship with anyone after that.  She had her 30th "sober birthday" on March 4th of this year.

She had three kids - my dad being the oldest.  It was deeply important to my dad in particular that my gramma be taken care of as she grew older.  When she retired from her last job, we were living in California.  So my dad found her a house out in California where she could be near us, but still have her own life.  She lived there the whole time my family did and gardened year round thanks to the California weather.  When my parents moved to Michigan, they asked her what she wanted and she said she wanted to move here too.

So, my dad did the same thing again - he found her a house and helped her get settled in.  My dad and gramma are both stubborn people (and so are my mom and I, for that matter) so it wasn't always easy to see how thankful she was for the things my dad did for her.  But I could see it.  She argued, but she felt taken care of for the almost ten years since her retirement.  Everywhere she moved, she made friends with her neighbors.  In Indiana she had Steve and Mayella who lived across the street.  In California she met Pat and Mary Jane who she quilted with even after she moved to Michigan.  And in Michigan she met Stan and Jeannie (husband and wife), Dawn and Wes (also husband and wife) and Sue.

When she started to get sick, about a year ago, she started accepting my dad's help more readily.  She broke her wrist (she got attacked by a table, we liked to say) last summer about the same time she got diagnosed with colon cancer.  From that point onward, my dad cooked almost every meal for her and my parents offered for her to move in with them as long as she wanted.  My gramma was always very self-sufficient though and she wanted to stay at her house as long as possible.  She spent weekends up at Lake Ponemah on our friend Wes's pontoon boat.  Even when the engine wasn't working, she would just sit on the dock and watch the waves ripple across the lake.

About three weeks ago (as I was coming back from DC), she got a bad diagnosis.  There was a tumor that was inoperable and we'd hoped that she would still have several months or even a couple years, but it was much more aggressive than we realized.  The doctor put her at a couple weeks.  That's when she moved in with my parents and we started hospice care.  It was then that she really expressed how immensely grateful she was for the things my dad did to take care of her.

It was important to him that her every need be taken care of in those last few weeks.  He, my mom and I all did our best to make sure my gramma wanted for nothing the whole time she was with us.  About a week before she died, she told her friend Beverly (who was visiting) that she wanted to see the Blind Side, but, she teased, don't tell my dad because any time she said she wanted something he immediately ran and got it for her.  She tried to get me some hospice swag as well... in the form of mac and cheese for dinner.  I jokingly said I wanted it and she offered to tell my dad that's what she was in the mood for so I could have it.

This weekend, when she started going downhill, we knew it was only a matter of days.  She had finished her letters to the people she cared about and hadn't seen.  She had seen her best friend from childhood.  She had done the things she set out to do before she went.  The last time we spoke was on Sunday morning.  She was mostly sleeping and incoherent, but when I walked over to her bed and kissed her forehead she opened her eyes and said "I love you".  I said "I love you too".  I feel blessed to have those as my last words to my gramma because it sums up everything important between us.

On Sunday night I went home.  I knew I wouldn't be able to handle being there when she passed and I had a feeling it would be sometime during the night.  I want to share a couple things that happened to me on Sunday night because, well, its important to me.  I had been having a crisis of faith in the weeks leading up to my gramma's death.  Fear of death can be calmed with the knowledge that someone is going to heaven, but for some reason I started wondering if that was just what we told ourselves to make it easier.  I began to get very afraid for my gramma because I couldn't say for sure that anything came after.

I went to sleep around midnight and was soon awoken by a feeling that someone was running their thumb along the back of my right hand.  I opened my eyes and looked around, but didn't move my hand.  That sensation continued for almost fifteen minutes while I was fully awake in my bed.  I asked my mom on Monday during the day if she or my dad had been holding my gramma's hand during that time, hoping for a sign or something, I guess.  She said they weren't.  But, she said, my gramma was grabbing the edge of the sheets and rubbing her thumb back and forth as though she was holding onto something.  That was the first thing.

I woke up and walked around a little at 3:40.  I don't know why I remember the time, but I do.  Like I said, I knew it was coming sometime during the night, in the back of my head.  Its why I went home and its why I couldn't sleep.  At 6am my first alarm went off and I turned it off to sleep in til 7am.  Between 6am and 7am, I had the most vivid and beautiful dream I've ever had in my life.  I noticed it because it was so much more alive than any other dream I've had and because I've remembered it better than any dream I've had before.

I was flying over a valley and a town.  There was a bright red barn with no roof on one side.  On the side without a roof there was a huge pumpkin vine covering the opening completely.  It was growing out into the valley.  We flew past it and over this tiny town.  There was only one circle of buildings - small country shops along a cobblestone street, including an amazingly homey store with a huge walkway (the kind where they have farmer's markets).  The thing that stood out for me was how bright the colors in the dream were.  There was light everywhere, in all sorts of amazing colors.  The sunlight had streaks of pink and purple flashing through and lighting up the street.

I didn't see the person I was flying with until we landed.  He looked tan (the kind of outdoorsy tan you get when you work hard) and about 50 years old.  We had flown past the town to this open building.  It was more of a roof with some chairs under it, overgrown with foliage and bright green vines so the sun could only come through in bursts.  There was a walking path down into the bright valley we'd flown over and we spent a few minutes talking at the house/building/roof we'd landed at.

Then we walked over to a greenhouse.  It was almost completely overgrown, but not in a bad way.  It looked like it was bursting with life - like the plants and flowers and vines were too alive to be contained in one place.  There was a high table with cake and drinks laid out and there were a ton of people standing around inside and near the greenhouse.  They all looked like they came out of a Ralph Lauren catalog, quite frankly.  They were all handsome and beautiful and dressed in white slacks or skirts and white shirts.  I asked what was going on and one of them hugged me and said we were waiting for the guest of honor.

A minute later I was dropped off at the top of a mountain with a pair of skis.  I spent what felt like forever skiing down that mountain.  It took easily as long to get down the mountain at the whole tour of that valley and town had taken.  I woke up to the alarm at 7am and went to class, but spent the whole time thinking about that dream.  It was so strangely vivid and it didn't fade at all when I woke up.  I'm usually grasping for parts of dreams within the hour, but even direct quotes from this one stayed with me.  The man I flew up with said "first you fly, then you run, then you walk, then you fly again and then you're here" when we landed.  I've never remembered something that specific from a dream before.

When I got back to my parent's house after class they told me to sit down and explained that my gramma had died during the night.  I asked what time and before they answered I knew... I didn't know the exact time, but I knew it would be between 6am and 7am.  See, when I woke up I thought: that place looks like heaven, but not for me.  It had such overwhelming beauty, but the things there were for someone who liked gardening, country stores and country houses, quilting and just sitting and staring out at beauty in front of them.  It wasn't for me.  It was for her.  She was the guest of honor, as she should be.